San Antonio City Councilman Marc Whyte charged with DWI. He says, 'I did not feel intoxicated.'

Whyte, 43, was unsteady on his feet and his eyes were red and glassy when police pulled him over late Friday night, records show. He told police he'd had three beers but was sober.

City Councilman Marc Whyte, shown in a booking photo, is the latest prominent San Antonian to be charged with drunken driving.
Courtesy Bexar County Sheriff's Office


Marc Whyte, left, is sworn in along with other council members after he was elected to the District 10 seat representing a swath of the Northeast Side.
Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News


Marc Whyte ran for the District 10 city council seat after incumbent Clayton Perry, embarrassed by a DWI arrest, decided not to seek re-election.
Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News

San Antonio Express-News
By Raul Trey Lopez, Megan Rodriguez, Staff writers
Updated December 30, 2023 4:34 p.m.

Seven months after he replaced a council member whose career was wrecked by a DWI incident, San Antonio City Councilman Marc Whyte has been charged with driving while intoxicated.

Whyte, 43, who represents District 10 on the Northeast Side, was arrested shortly after 11 p.m. Friday, the San Antonio Police Department said. An officer in SAPD’s DWI unit pulled Whyte over after seeing him driving erratically in the eastbound lanes of the Northeast Loop 410 access road just south of San Antonio International Airport.

Whyte was traveling 80 mph in a 65-mph zone and was drifting between lanes without signaling, the officer wrote in an affidavit. Whyte smelled strongly of alcohol, his eyes were “glassy” and “red,” and he swayed back and forth after getting out of his car, the affidavit says.

When the officer asked if he had been drinking, Whyte replied, “I had a beer,” according to the affidavit.

The councilman then said he’d had one drink at El Mirasol restaurant on Northwest Military Highway and a second at Myron’s Prime Steakhouse next door, the affidavit states. Whyte later told the officer he stopped for a drink at the nearby Thirsty Horse Saloon, too. Whyte said he had three beers in all but was “sober,” according to the affidavit.

Whyte was arrested and booked on a charge of DWI first offense, a misdemeanor.

He refused to take a breathalyzer test or have his blood drawn to determine his blood alcohol concentration, the affidavit states. Police obtained a warrant from a magistrate ordering Whyte to comply, and a nurse drew his blood at 1:30 a.m. Saturday, records show. The sample will be sent to the Texas Department of Public Safety lab in Austin for analysis.

Whyte was released from the Bexar County Jail early Saturday. His bail was set at $2,000. A court hearing is scheduled for Jan. 30.

“I did not feel intoxicated when I drove home last night,” Whyte said in a statement Saturday afternoon. “I never get behind the wheel when I feel as if I’ve had too much to drink. But that isn’t the point. Nobody should drive even if they have had just one drink. I take full ownership over my actions, and I apologize to the residents of District 10, my family, friends, council colleagues and anyone else who I have let down.”

He offered no further comment.

Through a spokesman, Mayor Ron Nirenberg declined to comment.

Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, who represents District 2 on the East Side, said he was “pretty good friends” with Whyte and called the incident “uncharacteristic.”

“It’s a shock to me,” he said. 

District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez has been friends with Whyte since the two were students at St. Mary’s University School of Law. 

He said Whyte’s quick response and willingness to own up to his actions show maturity. 

“But still, you can’t unring the bell,” Pelaez said. “The man was arrested for drinking and driving, and it is the very thing we have been trying to curb in San Antonio. This is frustrating, and nobody needed this.”

Whyte is a lawyer who ran unsuccessfully for the Texas House as a Republican in 2018. He was elected to City Council in May and sworn into office in June after then-District 10 Councilman Clayton Perry decided not to seek reelection because of his own DWI problem.

Perry, then 67, downed 14 drinks over four hours at the Evil Olive bar on the Northeast Side on Nov. 6, 2022, then caused a car accident on his way home and fled the scene of the crash, court records show. Perry pleaded guilty to DWI and leaving the scene and was sentenced to one year’s probation.

Whereas Perry had been a single-note voice of conservative opposition on council, Whyte has emphasized a collaborative, inclusive approach while taking conservative positions on public safety and other issues.

When he decided to run for Perry’s seat in early 2023, Whyte collected endorsements from seven former District 10 council members, a group made up mostly of conservatives but including one progressive Democrat.

“I’m constantly working with people who have different ideas about things, different visions, and trying to find some common ground; to find a solution that works for everybody,” he said in announcing his candidacy in February. “I think those skills are going to serve me well here in City Hall. We need more of that.”

Bruce Davidson, Nirenberg’s communications director, said he did not know when council would discuss how to respond to Whyte’s DWI arrest. After Perry’s arrest, the council reprimanded Perry with a 9-0 vote of no confidence, and Nirenberg stripped the councilman of his committee assignments. 

District 6 Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda cautioned against “rushing to judgment” in regard to Whyte, “as we don’t yet have all the facts.”

“I will take this opportunity to remind the community we should all be cognizant of the dangers of driving while impaired as we approach New Year celebrations,” she said in a statement. “Driving while impaired is a community-wide problem that requires not only vigilance, but compassion. I will support my friend and colleague in the difficult days to come.”

Mike Gallagher, one of the former District 10 councilmen who lobbied Perry to step down after his DWI arrest and who supported Whyte’s candidacy, said Whyte had just returned “from a very long trip in Australia, and so there’s probably a lot more details to this matter than we know about.”

Whyte joins a list of prominent San Antonians charged with DWI over the last year.

The others include former KSAT-TV sports anchor Greg Simmons, KSAT reporter John Paul Barajas, University of Texas at San Antonio football star Joshua Cephus and Northside Independent School District trustee Karla Castillon Duran.

Simmons resigned from KSAT after his arrest Jan. 27. His case is awaiting trial, as are Barajas’ and Duran’s. Cephus pleaded no contest to DWI and was sentenced to 15 months’ probation.

DWI-related crashes in San Antonio have caused more than 50 deaths per year on average since 2010, according to data from the Texas Department of Transportation. In 2021, drunken drivers caused nearly 2,000 crashes in the city, killing 57 people and seriously injuring 107.

That same year, San Antonio had the highest per capita rate of alcohol-related crashes among Texas' largest cities.

DWI is defined in the Texas Penal Code as driving with a blood alcohol concentration, or BAC, of 0.08 or higher. It’s a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail. A driver with a BAC of 0.08 is four times more likely to crash than a sober driver, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Driving with a BAC of 0.15 or higher, a level sometimes called “extreme intoxication,” is a more serious offense: a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and the loss of driving privileges for 90 days.

Whyte’s blood alcohol concentration will be known once the state police lab in Austin has completed its analysis of the sample drawn Saturday morning.